Jay

In general I tend to steer away from software with "Modeling" on the boxtop title and for those which are other than a full version. The softwares are interchangeable, but only with another similar user. A friend has DesignCAD and Autocad LT loaded up on his computer, and can fully import drawings from others and use the onboard drivers to create the temporary files to operate his equipment. My thought is these are readily available and affordable, and obsolete and will interchange with a host of drawings created by you and others. The local plotter repairman has these loaded up for testing and plot analysis onto his laptop. You could easily load either of which at home, then take a disk to office for plotting or alteration next morning.

A few years ago, I ran into two softwares which were designed for working with a deskjet printer. You could not create a drawing larger than which would fit onto am 11" x 17" sheet of paper. Period. This is fine if you are only working on rubber models. They had a filter in which limited the coordinate pairs to two significant places. In other words, you could not create a line which went into the 100's or higher.

On a personal note, I read about the numerous problems now going on for certain users of latest version of Turbocad involving XP. I understand that previous versions are more desired at present due to stability. Presume they will have cleared this problem up by next season. I use version 8 on occasion, and find their command termonology does not match those which I use in Autocad, and so often go into the manual just to look up the equavalent.

I have Intellicad also loaded up here at home, and it seems to be fully and directly interchangeable with Autocad. No conversions whatsoever and uses the Autodesk commands. It also has pen plotter drivers available in the loading process should you later desire to interchange with a firm who works CNC, or in G-code, or laser cutting codes. DesignCAD, Intellicad and Autocad LT are about 10% more expensive, but interchange with other systems that their brethren may not. They each still have a few terms in the unique command structure which defies this older CAD user.

The simpliest way is accomplish this is to go to a local adult night school which in my neighborhood cost $30 per semester. After about five weeks, the class will thin out, and you will have basically learned many of the commands which will enable you to do some work at home. Contrairy to what has been reported elsewhere, it is VERY difficult to learn CAD from a manual. Your termonology and description does not match their's and it is easier to question an instructor on how to get it done than to do through the manual index.

I have been getting 1-2 PM's per month now by someone who bought a $10 pen plotter on eBay and wants to run it at home. In round terms they will not work on XP and quite often not on software developed after 2002. These folks have switched back to older versions of CAD which are more compatible with the required output. They do the work in late model versions then convert back to the older version for plotting. These older versions also are completely interchangeable with the above noted hardware systems.



Wm.